The most important reason the Commanders lost to the NY Giants

There are a lot of stats you can look at to explain why the Washington Commanders lost to the New York Giants on Sunday night. For me, the following two sets of numbers are all you really need:

11-3-0-1, and

12-9-1-3

The four values in each row are …

TOTAL TACKLES-SOLO TACKLES-SACKS-TACKLES FOR LOSS.

The first row represents the combined game totals for the Commanders three first round draft picks across the defensive line – Montez Sweat, Jonathan Allen, and Daron Payne.

The second row were the totals of Giants edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux. Thibodeaux, by himself, significantly outperformed Washington’s entire defensive line.

To be clear, Washington’s defense did not lose this game. Washington’s offense is what lost it. But Washington’s defense didn’t win the game either (look no further than the Giants’ And that’s a problem for a team without good enough quarterback play.

You can point at Washington’s anemic first half passing attack or Ron Rivera’s questionable decisions regarding field goals and 2-point conversions. You can point to Scott Turner’s insistence on running Curtis Samuel out of the backfield when Brian Robinson was chewing up the Giants. You can blame the officials for three highly questionable calls, each of which directly resulted in points being scored or being nullified. You can of course point to the two Taylor Heinicke fumbles which more than any other individual plays cost the Commanders the game.

But as a whole, it was Thibodeaux’s ability to make game-altering plays – combined with the vaunted Commanders defensive line’s inability to do so that placed Washington playoff chances in serious jeopardy.

And what makes it such a gut punch for Commander fans is this: Kayvon Thibodeaux played the exact game that Washington fans would be expecting from Chase Young if he started in the same position.

In fact, Washington fans saw Chase Young play this kind of game two years ago, also in the middle of a playoff push, in San Francisco. Washington went out west and despite being thoroughly outplayed in most aspects of the game, managed a crucial win precisely because Chase Young made the kind of plays we all saw Kayvon Thibodeaux make on Sunday.

As good as Sweat, Allen, and Payne have been for the past several years, they are not the players who change games. They can be dominant, though they were not against New York. It appeared that their desire to limit Daniel Jones running may have cost them some pass pressure. But by almost any analysis, they played a good game. Washington’s defense only gave up 13 points, which should have been good enough to win.

Only it wasn’t, because Kayvon Thibodeaux didn’t merely play good defense. He made game-changing plays. And no one on Washington’s defense did that.

Is it fair to require your defense to generate points? Not really. That’s why you have an offense. But if Washington wants to claim it has an elite defense, then it has to at least generate turnovers.

Of course, none of this exists in a vacuum. Washington’s offensive line had been playing somewhat better over the past two months but they didn’t fare well on Sunday. Early in the season, we got a glimpse of this potential problem against Detroit, when rookie Aiden Hutchinson ran roughshod over the Commanders line during a first-half butt-kicking. When injury slowed Hutchinson down in the second half, Washington mounted a comeback.

The way Thibodeaux and Hutchinson were able to disrupt Washington’s offense is an ominous sign as the Commanders fight for their lives over the final three weeks. They will face, in consecutive weeks, Nick Bosa, Myles Garrett, and Micah Parsons, who currently rank 1st, 3rd, and 4th in the NFL in sacks this year. Each is capable of making game-changing plays – the kind that Kayvon Thibodeaux did to the tune of 12-9-1-3 against the Commanders on Sunday.

The kind of plays that Chase Young was not on the field to make for Washington.